Caracas Chronicles

For Monday, November 21, 2016. Translated by Javier Liendo.

Manuel López, a student with a beige shirt and a discourse worthy of the Frente Francisco de Miranda, was designated executive vice-president for the high school student republic by Nicolás at the monument to José Félix Ribas in Aragua. Ernesto Villegas, the guy who read el finado’s medical reports, now turned once more into chavismo’s Goebbles -after an impasse on TV where he defended his brother Vladimir-, decided to minimize the effects of the verdict against the Narcosobrinos in a show of student proselytism.

Without clarifying to the students why his nephews decided to get into drug trafficking at 18, Nicolás claimed that, during the sixties and seventies, young people “were not only pushed aside but massacred, denied the right to education and life,” thus ignoring the formative years of most of his ministers and the fate that his repressive policies ensured for Bassil da Costa and Geraldine Moreno, among many others.

Fallacious

Nicolás called the youth to march to Miraflores today, and they have a task to fulfill: choosing three problems and three solutions, with the PSUV’s new slogan in mind, “Indestructible Venezuela.” Proposing that while most schools and universities lack the budget to guarantee food for their students is both an insult and a fallacy.

Nicolás demanded his ministers to work “every day with the students, because ministers can’t be up in the air”; although his ministers are actually underground, considering their defining opacity, corruption and denial of reality, but the subject of the presidential hangar used for drug trafficking had to come up somehow. He claimed that “Pérez Jiménez was an innocent child compared to the rightist dictatorship,” and demanded his ministers a monthly report of their work with students.

Madness

A minute later, he said that Ramos Allup earned the gold medal for hate speech, although he thinks the Speaker deserves a dung medal instead. He insulted Carlos Ocariz once more, just as he flattered Chúo Torrealba, and he claimed to have fulfilled all the agreements reached in the dialogue table, complaining that the MUD hasn’t done its part and wants to leave negotiations

“I think this old man is mad, mad, mad as hell,” said Nicolás, regarding lawmaker Henry Ramos Allup, head of the National Assembly, announcing that he’ll file a national and international lawsuit against him, prepared with arguments of “eminent lawyers, sociologists and psychiatrists.” A minute later, he said that Ramos Allup earned the gold medal for hate speech, although he thinks the Speaker deserves a dung medal instead. He insulted Carlos Ocariz once more, just as he flattered Chúo Torrealba, and he claimed to have fulfilled all the agreements reached in the dialogue table, complaining that the MUD hasn’t done its part and wants to leave negotiations. Right after that, he yelled: “They won’t leave! There will be peace here!”. And he followed that with a tirade of insults, demands, lies and hateful phrases, only to speak about peace again. It’s a shame that he didn’t talk about his own madness. That must be why he asked the Pope to send trucks full with holy water “to see if the opposition stops the hatred.”

Worthless

“Nothing you do in a public square has any constitutional or legal validity,” said Nicolás, about the signature collection for an unofficial recall, announced by several opposition parties. If that’s true, why is he worried? But moreover, that confirms the uselessness of the “Obama, repeal the executive order now” campaign, which was immediately supported by the CNE with millions of signatures, without mistakes or dead people. Improvisation always gets the best of him and he ended up admitting that many in the PSUV were concerned in January by the request for a recall referendum, an emotion he minimized by repeating the phrase: “don’t worry that the team always wins.”

New communication system

“De los medios a las redes y de las redes a las paredes,” every time he rhymes, he repeats it to exhaustion. This is his new communication pattern to “win the battle of ideas,” to be the champion of social networks, to spread his truth all over Venezuela, because in his view, only 5% of what the government does reaches the public. An important example: according to him, high school and elementary school enrollments reached 90% and 94% respectively under chavismo, compared to less than 40% in La Cuarta. It should’ve been trending, but the bots were dedicated to their indestructible stupidity.

International

You couldn’t beat Venezuela so far, and you won’t

Nicolás warned Barack Obama that he’d failed in his intentions to attack the country: “He went to Peru to talk nonsense, they come to South America to speak against Venezuela. They’re shameless. You couldn’t beat Venezuela so far, and you won’t,” he said, regarding the US president’s remarks during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, where he said that repressive governments always fail along with their economies. He admitted his expectations for what will happen in the US with Donald Trump’s presidency, claimed that the Spanish government was racist and once again compared his moral standing to speak about the country with Barack Obama’s shamelessness.

…

Nicolás is the only “leader” who needs a tag with his title on a desk to remind the rest of the people who he’s supposed to be. Some kids carried color-printed signs with the indestructible heart and others wore mustaches whenever the cameras focused on them. I told you: Nicolás is a farce. That doesn’t exempt him from explaining to the country what his nephews were doing with their diplomatic passports and their use of ramp 4 at Maiquetía International Airport.